Caprices of a Muse
by Manon
Summary: Jean Prouvaire has a small adventure. No, there is no particular plot.


A warm spring afternoon, sliding toward evening like water down a gentle slope. A building, in the midst of the old city, looming with architectural arrogance over the surrounding courtyards, squares and streets. A boy of eighteen, within the massive stone walls of this building, shivering a little as he gazes intently at the bookshelves before him.  
  
Then in consternation: "The /devil/!"  
  
The boy falls back a step, devastated by his own folly, and begins to sort feverishly through the books and papers in his arms. Someone hisses at him to hush, but he does not hear.  
  
"Idiot," he mutters, "/idiot/!"  
  
"Shhhh!"  
  
It is no use. After coming all this way from his dreary boarding house, through the teeming streets, after reaching this chilly haven, cradling the essence of utter genius like so much water in his hands -- he has forgotten his notebook. He has a pencil, but no notebook, and it's useless to ask for paper in this place; they look at you as though you plotted some wholesale literary theft. By all the moldering gods!  
  
No time. Already it's slipping from him, he's losing the seed, the image, forgetting which passage he wanted to look up to confirm his thought, and there is no time to lose. The boy makes a flash decision. Sure of his way, having been here so many times before, he ducks out of the aisle and dashes for an alcove at the back of the great vaulted room. There is a desk there and a large, decidedly uncomfortable armchair. On the seat of the chair he arranges his books neatly, the pencil nestled beside them. Then he heads for the entrance.  
  
As soon as the sunshine touches his face he breaks into a run, swearing in three languages. No time, no /time/, and here are all these people in his way as he tears back home, a quarter of a mile away as the crow flies, which he can't, and it's trickling through his hands. But he is a poet, not an athlete, and by the time he reaches his building he is out of breath.   
  
He stumbles up the stairs, wrestles with the locked door, finds the journal lying innocently on his rumpled bed. He catches it up as though it might flee him, and leans on the desk a moment, gasping, before dashing out again.   
  
"What in the name of heaven, young man--"  
  
"I haven't time--"  
  
"Clattering through here like a herd of elephants, it's a wonder you don't bring down the ceiling on our heads--"  
  
"Madame, I beg of you!"  
  
She sidesteps out of his way, still complaining, and the boy is gone again.  
  
All the way back, through the crowds thicker than ever as sunset approaches, he is piecing words together frantically in his head, leaving off only when he realizes his pace has slackened. If there was time, if there was time, he could stop here on the corner and scrawl down the gist with his spare pencil, but he has left his books there, one of which was borrowed from Etienne, and God help him if that goes missing.  
  
The back of his shirt is damp with sweat, his face is hot, he is entirely out of breath, but he manages to walk back in the door with suitable composure despite his pounding heart. He picks his way across the room, rounds the corner to the alcove--  
  
--someone is sitting in the chair.   
  
For a split second panic grips him. After all this, he trusted that damnable armchair's knobbled back and hard seat to insure him against disaster, and here is this broad-shouldered tousle-haired ruffian sitting in his shirtsleeves where his belongings ought to be.   
  
Then in the next breath he sees them stacked just as neatly as he left them, on the edge of the desk, and he breathes again. He makes a furtive move to collect them and make his escape, and the tousle-haired ruffian looks up and says politely, "Sorry-- were you sitting here?"  
  
"No! No... that's all right... thank you."  
  
The boy is ready to weep for gratitude as the other hands over his books with a friendly grin. Fate, for once, has been merciful to him. He slides into a seat nearby, extracts his pencil, takes a deep breath, and plunges headlong into a sonnet on the beauty of small and unexpected kindnesses. He never even realizes that his original idea has gone clean out of his head. 


End file.
